“If we were having a honeymoon, it wouldn’t be here,” Richard muttered. What, were they to take up rooms in the east of the house and pretend they were at the seashore? The wind coming through would give a good approximation of Cornwall. Or the Arctic.
Cresswell cleared his throat. “I believe they are to return in two weeks’ time, sir.”
“Two weeks?” That would not do.
Iris’s hand on his arm gave a little squeeze. “Who is Mrs. Milton?”
“My aunt,” he said distractedly.
“She left you a letter,” Cresswell said.
Richard’s eyes snapped back to the butler’s face. “My aunt? Or Fleur?”
“Your aunt. I placed it atop your correspondence in your study.”
“Nothing from Fleur?”
“I am afraid not, sir.”
He was going to bloody well strangle her. “Nothing even to pass along?” he pressed the butler. “A verbal message?”
“Not that I am aware.”
Richard took a breath, trying to regain his equilibrium. This was not how he had anticipated their homecoming. He’d thought—Well, in truth he hadn’t really thought of much, except that his sisters would be here, and he would be able to begin the next phase of his plan.
As horrifying as that was.
“Sir Richard,” came Iris’s voice.
He turned, blinking. She’d called him sir again, something he was coming to detest. It was a gesture of respect, and if he’d done anything to earn that, it would be lost soon.
She tilted her head awkwardly toward the servants, who were still standing stiffly at attention. “Perhaps we should continue with the introductions?”
“Yes, of course.” He managed a tightly false smile before turning toward his housekeeper. “Mrs. Hopkins, will you introduce Lady Kenworthy to the maids?”
Hands clasped stiffly behind his back, Richard followed the two ladies as they greeted each maid. He did not intercede; this was Iris’s moment, and if she was to assume her proper role at Maycliffe, he could not be seen as undermining her authority.
Iris handled the introductions with aplomb. She looked slight and pale next to the hearty Mrs. Hopkins, but her posture was straight and firm, and she greeted each maid with grace and poise.
She did him proud. But then again, he’d known she would.
Cresswell took over when the ladies had finished, presenting each footman and groom. When they were done, the butler turned to Richard, and said, “Your rooms have been prepared, sir, and a light luncheon awaits at your convenience.”
Richard held out his arm to Iris but continued to speak to Cresswell. “I trust that Lady Kenworthy’s rooms have been readied?”
“To your specifications, sir.”
“Excellent.” Richard looked down at Iris. “Everything has been cleaned and aired out, but we have not redecorated. I supposed that you would wish to choose the colors and fabrics yourself.”
Iris smiled her thanks, and Richard gave a silent prayer that her tastes did not run to brocades imported from France. Maycliffe was once again profitable, but they were by no means rolling in funds. There was a reason his original plan had been to find a bride with a generous dowry. Iris had come with but two thousand pounds. Nothing to sneeze at, but also nothing that would restore the estate to its former glory.
She could redecorate her rooms, though. It was the least he could do.
Iris glanced up at Maycliffe, and as her eyes swept over the red brick façade he loved so well, he wondered what she saw. Did she see the charm of the Dutch gables or sad state of the glass in their circular windows? Would she love the history of the ancient home or would she find the hodgepodge of architectural styles jarring and unrefined?
It was his home, but could she ever see it as hers?
“Shall we go inside?” he asked her.
She smiled. “I would like that.”
“Perhaps a tour of the house?” he suggested. He knew he should ask if she wished to rest, but he was not ready to take her to her rooms. Her bedchamber was connected to his bedchamber, and both were in possession of large, comfortable beds, neither of which he could use in the manner he would like.
The last three days had been hell.
Or more specifically, the last three nights.
The Kings Arms had been the worst. They’d been given separate rooms, as he’d requested ahead of time, but the proprietor, eager to please the newlyweds, had shown them to his finest suite. “With connecting doors!” he’d proclaimed with a grin and a wink.
Richard hadn’t realized a door could be so thin. He’d heard Iris’s every movement, every cough and sigh. He’d heard her blaspheme when she’d stubbed her toe, and he’d known the exact moment she climbed into bed. The mattress had groaned, even under her slim frame, and it had not taken his imagination long to leap from his room to hers.
Her hair would be down. He’d never seen it such, and he’d found himself wondering at all hours of the day how long it was. She always wore it in a loose bun at her nape. He’d never given much thought to ladies’ hairstyles before, but with Iris, he could see every pin against her soft, pale hair. Fourteen had been required to secure her tresses that morning. It seemed a great number. Did it somehow indicate the length?
He wanted to touch it, to run his fingers through it. He wanted to see it in the moonlight, sparkling silver like the stars. He wanted to feel it whispering across his skin as she brought her lips to—
“Richard?”
He blinked. It took him a moment to remember that they were standing in the courtyard in front of Maycliffe.
“Is something amiss?” Iris asked.
“Your hair,” he blurted out.
She blinked. “My hair?”
“It’s lovely.”
“Oh.” She blushed, self-consciously touching the tendrils at the nape of her neck. “Thank you.” Her eyes darted to the side and then back up through her pale lashes. “I had to do it myself.”
He stared at her blankly.
“I’ll need to hire a maid,” she explained.
“Oh, yes, of course.”
“I’ve practiced on my sisters, but I’m not very proficient on myself.”
He had no idea what she was talking about now.
“It took me a dozen pins to do what my former maid could do with five.”
Fourteen.
“I beg your pardon?”
Oh dear God, he had not just said that aloud. “We will find a new lady’s maid posthaste,” he said firmly. “Mrs. Hopkins can help you. You can begin the search today if you like.”
“If you don’t mind,” Iris said, as he finally led her through Maycliffe’s front door, “I think I would like to rest before touring the house.”
“Of course,” he said. She’d been in a carriage for six hours. It only stood to reason she’d wish to lie down.
In her bedroom.
In a bed.
He groaned.
“Are you sure you’re well?” she asked. “You seem very strange.”
That was one word for it.
She touched his arm. “Richard?”
“Never better,” he croaked. He turned to his valet, who had followed them in. “I believe I need to refresh myself as well. Perhaps a bath?”
His valet nodded, and Richard leaned forward, adding in a low voice, “Nothing too warm, Thompson.”
“Bracing, sir?” Thompson murmured in response.
Richard gritted his teeth. Thompson had been with him for eight years, long enough to show such cheek.
“Will you show me the way?” Iris asked.
Would he show her the way?
“To my room?” she clarified.
He stared at her. Stupidly.
“Could you show me to my room?” she asked again, looking up at him with a perplexed expression.
It was official. His brain had stopped working.
“Richard?”
“My correspondence,” he said suddenly, grasping onto th
e first excuse he could think of. He desperately needed not to be alone in a bedroom with Iris. “I really need to check on that first.”
“Sir,” Cresswell began, undoubtedly to remind him that he employed a perfectly good secretary.
“No, no, best to get it over with. Must be done, you know. And there’s that letter from my aunt. Can’t ignore that.” He affixed a jolly smile to his face and turned to Iris. “Mrs. Hopkins should be the one to show you your new rooms, anyway.”
Mrs. Hopkins did not look as if she agreed.
“She was in charge of the redecorating,” Richard added.
Iris frowned. “I thought you said you had not redecorated.”
“The airing out,” he said, punctuating with a meaningless wave of his hand. “She’ll know the rooms better than I, anyway.”
Mrs. Hopkins pursed her lips in disapproval, and Richard felt like a young boy, about to be reprimanded. The housekeeper had been as much a mother to him as his own, and while she would never countermand him in front of others, he knew she would make her feelings known later.
Impulsively, Richard took Iris’s hand and brought it to his lips for a brief kiss. No one would accuse him of ignoring his wife in public. “You must rest, my darling.”
Iris’s lips parted with surprise. Had he not yet called her his darling? Bloody hell, he should have done.
“Will an hour be sufficient?” he asked her, or rather, he asked her lips, which were still delightfully pink and parted. Good Lord, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to slide his tongue in and taste her very essence, and—
“Two!” he blurted out. “You’ll need two.”
“Two?”
“Hours,” he said firmly. “I do not wish to overtax you.” He looked over at Mrs. Hopkins. “Ladies are very delicate.”
Iris frowned adorably, and Richard bit back a curse. How could she look adorable when she frowned? Surely that was an anatomical impossibility.
“Shall I see you to your bedchamber, Lady Kenworthy?” Mrs. Hopkins inquired.
“I would appreciate that, thank you,” Iris replied, her eyes still pinned suspiciously on Richard.
He gave her a wan smile.
Iris followed Mrs. Hopkins down the hall, but before they turned the corner, he heard her say, “Do you consider yourself delicate, Mrs. Hopkins?”
“No indeed, my lady.”
“Good,” Iris said in a crisp voice. “Neither do I.”
Chapter Eleven
BY EVENING, RICHARD had come up with a new plan. Or rather, a modification. One he really should have considered from the beginning.
Iris was going to be angry with him. Spectacularly angry. There was no getting around that.
But perhaps he could lessen the blow?
Cresswell had said that Fleur and Marie-Claire would be gone for two weeks. That wasn’t going to work, but a week could be managed. He could have his sisters fetched home after only seven days; that would be easy enough to arrange. His aunt lived but twenty miles away.
And in the meantime . . .
One of Richard’s many regrets was that he had not had the time to properly court his new wife. Iris still did not know the reason for their hasty marriage, but she was no idiot; she could see that something was not quite right. If Richard had had just a little more time back in London, he could have wooed her the way a woman ought to be wooed. He could have shown her that he delighted in her company, that she made him laugh, that he could make her laugh. He could have stolen a few more kisses and awakened the desire that he was certain lay deep in her soul.
And then, after all that, when he dropped to one knee and asked her to marry him, Iris would not have hesitated. She would have gazed into his eyes, found whatever sort of love she had been longing for, and she would have said yes.
Maybe thrown herself into his arms.
Blinking back tears of happiness.
That would have been the proposal of her dreams, not the shabby, calculated kiss he’d thrust upon her in her aunt’s hallway.
But he’d had no choice. Surely, when he explained everything, she would understand that. She knew what it meant to love one’s family, to want to protect them at all costs. It was what she did each year when she played in the musicale. She didn’t want to be there; she did it for her mother, and her aunts, and even her eternal-thorn-in-the-side sister Daisy.
She’d understand. She had to.
He had been granted a one-week reprieve. Seven full days before he had to come clean and watch her face grow even more pale at his betrayal. Maybe he was a coward; maybe he should use this time to explain it all, to prepare her for what must come.
But he wanted what he could not have before the wedding. Time.
A lot could happen in seven days.
One week, he told himself as he went to collect her for their first supper together at Maycliffe Park.
One week to make her fall in love with him.
IRIS SPENT THE entire afternoon resting in her new bedchamber. She’d never quite understood how sitting in a carriage could leave a body so weary when sitting in a chair in a drawing room required no energy whatsoever, but the three-day journey to Maycliffe had left her utterly exhausted. Maybe it was the jostling of the carriage or the poor state of the roads this far north. Or maybe—probably—it had something to do with her husband.
She did not understand him.
One moment he was charming, and the next he was fleeing her presence as if she carried plague. She could not believe he had had the housekeeper show her to her room. Surely that was a new husband’s job. But she supposed she should not have been surprised. Richard had avoided her bed at all three inns they’d visited on the journey north. Why should she think he might behave differently now?
She sighed. She needed to learn to be indifferent to him. Not cruel, not unkind, just . . . unaffected. When he smiled at her—and he did smile at her, the cur—her whole being seemed to fizz with happiness. Which would have been lovely, except that it made his rejection even more puzzling.
And painful.
Honestly, it would be better if he weren’t so nice to her most of the time. If she could dislike him—
No, what was she thinking? It would not be better if he were cruel or ignored her completely. Surely a complicated marriage was better than an unpleasant one. She had to stop being melodramatic. It was not like her. She just needed to find some sort of equilibrium and maintain it.
“Good evening, Lady Kenworthy.”
Iris started with surprise. Richard was poking his head through the partially open doorway that led to the hall. “I did knock,” he said with an amused expression.
“I’m sure you did,” she said hastily. “My mind was elsewhere.”
His smile grew more sly. “Dare I ask where?”
“Home,” she lied, then realized what she’d said. “I mean London. This is my home now.”
“Yes,” he said, and he entered the room, quietly shutting the door behind him. His head tilted slightly to the side, and he stared at her for just long enough to make her fidget. “Have you done something different with your hair?”
And just like that, all of her vows to remain indifferent went out the window.
Iris nervously touched her head, just behind her right ear. He’d noticed. She had not thought he would. “One of the maids helped me to dress,” she said. “She’s rather fond of . . .”
Why was he looking at her so intently?
“Fond of . . . ?”
“Little braids,” she said in a rush. A ridiculous rush. She sounded like a ninny.
“It looks lovely.”
“Thank you.”
He gazed at her warmly. “You do have the most marvelous hair. The color is exquisite. I have never seen the like.”
Iris’s lips parted. She should say something. She should thank him. But she felt almost frozen—not cold, just frozen—and then she felt ridiculous. To be so affected by a compliment.
Richard was thankfully u
naware of her torment. “I’m sorry you had to travel without a maid,” he continued. “I confess I did not even consider the issue. Typical of the males of our species, I’m sure.”
“I-it was not a problem.”
His smile deepened, and Iris wondered if it was because he knew he’d flustered her.
“Nevertheless,” he said, “I apologize.”
Iris didn’t know what to say. Which was just as well, because she wasn’t sure she remembered how to speak.
“Did Mrs. Hopkins show you your room?” Richard asked.
“Yes,” Iris said with a little bob of a nod. “She was most helpful.”
“It meets with your satisfaction?”
“Of course,” Iris said with complete honesty. It was a lovely chamber, bright and cheerful with its southern exposure. But what she really loved . . .
She looked up at Richard with bliss in her eyes. “You have no idea how delighted I am to have my own washroom.”
He chuckled. “Really? That’s what you love best?”
“After sharing one with Daisy for the last seventeen years? Absolutely.” She tipped her head toward him in what she hoped was a cheeky manner. “And the view from the window isn’t bad, either.”
His laugh deepened, and he stepped toward the window, motioning for her to join him. “What do you see?” he asked.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Iris said, carefully positioning herself so that they did not touch.
But he was not so inclined. He looped his arm through hers and gently tugged her closer. “I have lived my entire life at Maycliffe. When I gaze out this window, I see the tree I first climbed when I was seven. And the spot where my mother always wanted a hedgerow maze.”
A wistful expression came over his face, and Iris had to look away. It felt almost intrusive to watch him.
“I cannot see Maycliffe through a newcomer’s eyes,” she heard him say. “Perhaps you would do me the favor of enlightening me.”
His voice was smooth and velvety, flowing through her like warm chocolate. She kept her eyes forward, but she knew that he had turned toward her. His breath tickled her cheek, warming the air between them.
“What do you see, Iris?”
She swallowed. “I see . . . grass. And trees.”